Tata Group Chairman N Chandrasekaran admitted on Sunday, January 8, that Air India's response to the incident of a drunk passenger urinating on a woman on one of its international flights last year should have been "much swifter.” In a statement, which came days after the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) pulled up the Tata Group-owned full-service carrier, Chandrasekaran also said that "we fell short of addressing this situation the way we should have."
In a shocking incident, a man named Shankar Mishra urinated on a woman passenger — a senior citizen in her 70s — during a New York-New Delhi flight in November 2022. The accused was arrested by the Delhi police from Bengaluru on Saturday, January 7. "The incident on Air India flight AI102 on November 26, 2022, has been a matter of personal anguish to me and my colleagues at Air India. Air India's response should have been much swifter. We fell short of addressing this situation the way it should have been,” Chandrasekaran said in the statement on Sunday.
"The Tata Group and Air India stand by the safety and well-being of our passengers with full conviction. We will review and repair every process to prevent or address any incidents of such unruly nature," he added in the statement. DGCA has said Air India's conduct in handling the incident was "unprofessional" and issued show cause notices to the airline, its director of in-flight services and the crew that operated the flight.
A Delhi court sent Shankar Mishra to 14-day judicial custody on Sunday. Metropolitan Magistrate Anamika at Patiala Court House rejected an application seeking three-day police custody for Shankar Mishra. She said that she will not make decisions based on public opinion but will go by the law. The Magistrate said, “This is the stage for remand. Let the facts come on record. Police custody is not a punishment.”